Page 61 of Under Cover
Crosby kept his game face on as his former boss, the guy with Crosby’s balls in a vise, stormed around the little room, raging about five dead operatives—and two other stalwart Sons who’d gotten caught in the crossfire.
As McEnany was kicking over the coffee table, Crosby had glanced at the kid next to him, one of the scrawny, underfed young men—twenty-two, twenty-three—who looked like he was still getting beat up on the daily.
“Kid,” he said on a yawn, and the guy skittered his been-whipped-too-many-times eyes to Crosby.
“Junior,” the kid said.
“Like Jimmy Junior?” Oh God—nothing like being a legacy member of a hate division.
Junior nodded, glancing at his father. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I… uh….”
“You want to show me where my flop is?” Crosby asked, not having to fake exhaustion. The guys in the flop looked like they were wired for sound—and he’d heard noises about them usually working nightshift at the warehouse. Not Crosby—thank fuck.
“Yeah, you want I should get you settled?” Junior replied, looking almost eager.
“McEnany said he got me all set up, but I need to count my underwear and shit, you know?”
Junior watched McEnany lose complete control again, his father yelling rather desperately, “Collie! Collie! Calm down. We’ll get the bastards!”
“My sister’s kid was in that clusterfuck!” McEnany shouted. “How’m I gonna tell her you sent him to fuckin’ die!”
Junior gave Crosby a desperate look, and Crosby nodded. While Jimmy and McEnany were on the far side of the room, Crosby started for the door like he had every reason to want to get the hell out of there.
“Where the fuck’re you goin’?” McEnany snapped, and Crosby pulled his bullshit suit on.
“Look, man—I’m real sorry for your loss. It just seemed like you all needed the space to mourn your brothers, yeah? I thought it would be more respectful if I left you all to do that.”
Jimmy nodded, his eyes red-rimmed and shiny.He lost people too. God, whoever’s behind this needs to fuckin’ pay. These guys are deluded, but they coulda been led somewhere else.
“Good man,” Jimmy said, sounding choked. “Junior, you show him where his apartment is. Your shift is day after tomorrow. Collie tells me he got you all moved in?”
The thought of “Collie” with his fingers all over Crosby’s underwear made him want to vomit. “Yeah. I may need to check my shaving kit, though. You know, every guy’s got his toothpaste and his aftershave, right?”
“CVS on the corner,” Jimmy said. “Junior’ll show you that too after you get some winks. Night, Rick. Thanks for the time, man. We lost some good people.”
Crosby put his hands together and gave a short bow. “We’ll do ’em proud,” he said, because he figured that would be of comfort to a man like Jimmy.
Apparently not. Jimmy’s eyes spilled over, and Crosby used that moment to slide out the door, Junior on his heels.
His flop was three floors up, and it was easier to take the stairs because the two elevators were both grossandrickety. McEnany had made a point of telling him that the one on the south end of the building perpetually smelled like shit. The stairway smelled like wet metal and mold, but it had to be better than shit.
Crosby let himself into the room and grimaced. It was smaller than the one the rest of the Sons met in, with a closet, a bed, a few chairs around a tiny table, and a kitchenette. Microwave, hot plate, coffee maker—everything a growing boy needed, right?
With a grunt, Crosby realized he hadn’t even brought his laptop with him, which was just as well, because Jimmy Junior was making himself comfortable in one of Crosby’s chairs, a rickety affair next to the pasteboard table. He yawned and laid his head down on the table, and Crosby realized the kid was as tired as he was.
Jesus.
“Kid,” Crosby said, eyeballing the bed, “you want I should give you a blanket and a pillow? You can take the little couch?”
Junior looked up at him, gratitude profound on his thin face. Another kid with no dental work, crooked teeth, a crooked nose, a crooked chin to go with it.
Maybe he’d been hit often enough that braces weren’t the only problem.
“Yeah, Rick. That’d be great. Thank you.”
He appeared to have no artifice in him, and Crosby had to wonder what the downside was to this kid. He was, technically, the enemy, but Crosby wondered how he’d respond if Natalia tried to mother him. Would he be disdainful because she was Black or just so fucking grateful that a kind adult paid attention to him?
So many ways that could go.
